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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Lid failure
« Last post by Ben Framed on Today at 10:26:06 pm »
Check this out. Especially the 50 second vid which I posted with it some time ago. I love this stuff, tops, bottoms, and the 3/4 strips which the bottom box rest on.


https://beemaster.com/forum/index.php?topic=52581.msg471107#msg471107
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It kinda sucks, but the airspace above your property is basically considered "public". Even if you have a peeping Tom neighbor flying one over your hot tub, you get in trouble if you send birdshot its way. I suppose a ski mask might help?
In most States, you have a right to reasonable use of water that flows through or is under your property ... apparently not in Oregon?
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Bruce of BruceBees is giving it a go!


https://youtu.be/To6GxgWi7uI?si=Q4YfwtHRxb_ztWpi
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 People from the state can go on your private property and put water meters on your private well.. Fly Aircraft man or unman. Over your property.. Possibly for you doing something wrong.. Sounds very much like. Breaking the fourth amendment of the United States constitution to me.


   BEE HAPPY  Jim134   :smile:
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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Lid failure
« Last post by animal on Today at 09:57:46 pm »
 :shocked: but ... but  ... there's no overkill ... that's too simple !  :wink: :cheesy:

To be honest, I've never considered putting OSB in the weather on a wall, much less  a horizontal surface... I'm assuming you mean the 4'x8' subfloor panels, and I realize they use additional sealers in that brand. Actually, I've never bought the stuff... using 3/4 plywood most of the time. I've only used OSB a handful of times and that was when cost was the number 1 concern. ... and ... I can get regular t&g OSB subfloor for over 20 bucks a sheet cheaper.

Are you painting it ?
How long does it last before it starts shedding wafers?
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Quote
b. Would Italian bees try to "rob" a hive that doesn't really have a store of honey? (They all have the same jars of syrup.)
I have local mutts, so I can't speak from experience, but I'm under the impression all bees will rob when the situation presents itself.  What you are describing sounds like it could be robbing.   

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a. Is there any significance to bees being clustered only on the wall of the hive box??
In my experience, bees who are clustered are unable to work for some reason.  I agree that it sounds like the queen is probably there based on your observations.  I noticed you said all the hives have plenty of syrup, but are they actually drinking it?  Are any of the hives drawing wax yet?  40F overnight sounds like it may be too cold for them to take it, because the syrup is too viscous and/or they know it will reduce their body temperature too much.  Syrup has a pretty high heat capacity, meaning that it takes a long time for it to warm up to the ambient temperature, and if your daytime highs also aren't very warm, the syrup may never warm up enough for them to take it.  If they are unable to eat, they are unable to work, and so they have just entered conservation mode and are sitting on the wall trying not to expend energy.  If you can warm the syrup somehow it may enable them to drink it.  I did this with my first two packages during a cold snap; I just popped the jars in the microwave before I brought them out to the hives every time I fed them.

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Any other comments/suggestions?
I think you probably learned this based on your experiences hiving the packages, but I just wanted to articulate something that I find helpful to remember: When you have a hive open, try to be methodical and be sure you don't miss something, rather than rush and forget something that you'll need to disturb them to fix later.  When you encounter a situation with a hive open and you aren't sure what to do, it's very easy to get overwhelmed, make a hasty decision, and then realize later with a clearer head that it wasn't the best decision.  Whenever I find this is happening to me, I like to physically take a step back from the hive, and take a moment to think through what I need to do, how I'm going to do it, and why I'm doing it, before I begin to make the motions of doing it.  The only time that speed is equally paramount is when the bees are angry, and even then being thorough is no less important.  When you are a beginner it's really hard to remember all the steps and all the facts because everything about beekeeping is really foreign, so feel free to give yourself the space to be sure you've got all the boxes checked.  The bees will not mind, and they may thank you for it.  I think you did a good job handling the curveballs thrown at you during this process, and I just wanted to pass that along to you, in case you are feeling a little overwhelmed.  :happy:

I also just wanted to mention, in case it needs to be said, that the cluster of bees on the ground was absolutely no danger to anyone.  Those bees were for all intents and purposes a swarm in that moment, and unless stepped on they wouldn't have stung anyone.  Just in case you needed some backup to convince your daughter-in-law.  :grin:     
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So you will use only five hundred gallons a day.. Or five thousand gallons if you're commercial

It was proposed some years ago and didn't get far.  We should be a little careful about getting our info from youtube.  After all, those sites are after clicks so not always so accurate.

This particular alarm about water rights is justified though.  It has never been applied in the way it is now being applied.  Hopefully, attention to it makes a difference.  Most of Oregon is still rural even if it is often run by the clumpers in Portland. 
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   From what I understand... Many of these laws were rewritten..  Just recently.. And nothing was voted on by the people.. Sounds like the government wants full control . Of your food supply. At least in Oregon .. I'm just wondering what states will.. Follow the lead of Oregon ?? Also looks like the state of oregon is going to put water meters on your private wells.. So you will use only five hundred gallons a day.. Or five thousand gallons if you're commercial... This will be the end of small organic farms in my opinion.. In the state of oregon.. Which pass laws people did not even vote for  :angry: :angry:


     BEE HAPPY Jim134   :smile:
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We received 3 packages of Italian bees with queens from MountainSweetHoney.com in Georgia on Thurs, Mar 21.

We hived them the same day and put syrup on top. Hives numbered:
Hive 1. My dear hubby who is normally a slam-bang-go kind of guy shook the package altogether too gently and had trouble getting the bees in. I had trouble putting the queen cage fastened in properly with a paper clip. Long story short, the poor bees went through a lot of trauma and some of them were left outside the hive and had to find their own way in.

Hive 2. For #2, the middle hive, about 2 hours after the first package was hived and when those bees were somewhat settled, I fastened the queen cage to the middle frame of Hive 2. Then we let the bees walk into a round front entrance from the package to avoid trauma of #1. It took them a long time to make the transition.

3. A couple hours later, we repeated procedure of letting bees walk in for #3. It was also a slow process.

We put syrup on all hives in mason jars over a screened opening on the inner couple. Unfortunately the screen area is larger than the jar, and the nights were near 40F.

Overnight I remembered that the hole on the cage was not to be slanted down, so it would not be plugged by dead attendant bees. Thus on Friday (the next day) I opened the hives 1 & 2 again to pull out the queen cage, take off extra ribbon, put on rubber bands to help orient queen cage horizontally under foundationless frame. Thus more trauma for hives 1 & 2.

We already noticed on Friday that Hive #3 had much more bee activity in front than Hives 1 & 2 which seemed about equal, with maybe more bees in front of 1.

On Sunday, I cut cardboard to fit around lid of mason jars to eliminate draft through extra screen, but did not otherwise disturb hives.

On Monday, I opened all hives to check on queen cages. They were all empty.

Tuesday morning, I noticed lots of bees in front of hives 1 & 3, with very little activity in front of Hive 2. By afternoon, there seemed to be no activity in front of Hive 2, so I thought I'd better check what was going on inside: There were only 3 or 4 bees, and I thought maybe the queen was lost, and the bees had joined the other two hives. Not happy ...

That evening my daughter-in-law Rebeca happened to mention that she had almost stepped on a clump of bees on the ground by the shop. She seemed concerned about her safety, but I instantly realized those were our bees! She led her husband to the place the bees were balled up on the ground, and I got a cardboard box to scoop up as many bees as I could - which seemed to be almost all of them. I used my hands to get most of them, then used a bee brush which may not have been a good idea, then figured that plucking up the grass by hand would give me better access to the bees .. Towards the end, the bees seemed to be walking into the box which I had laid on its side for them to enter. So I thought I had the queen.

We shook the bees back into the original hive but failed to put all the foundationless frames back in. I shut the main front entrance (I thought) and left a disk entrance open to the queen excluder setting. Although I think we got most of the bees, the number of bees was considerably less than we started with originally.

The next morning (Wednesday), I took a peek underneath the inner cover, and all the bees were clustered on one wall of the box. I put the missing 4 frames back in. Come to find out, that the bottom front entrance was not completely closed and the bees could slip through a crack between the wood and the hive. (It isn't a proper entrance reducer.) I fixed it to be closed.

The bees all have a good supply of syrup.

Today, Thursday, I noticed some activity in front of Hive 2, including bees coming out and going in to the queen excluder disk. But other bees seemed to be trying to get into the bottom entrance. And it seemed like several times I saw bees fighting.

We have screened bottoms with an aluminum half-sheet pan tightly under the screen, ready for hive beetle control. It tells me where the bees are, and I pulled out the pan under hive 2 and discovered that the bees must still be clustered on that one outside wall.

Hive 1 seems to be doing great. Hive 3 seems *really* active, and it seems to have more bees than Hive 1. Hive 2 is definitely the weakest hive right now - with maybe half the bees of Hive 3.

Questions:
a. Is there any significance to bees being clustered only on the wall of the hive box??

b. Would Italian bees try to "rob" a hive that doesn't really have a store of honey? (They all have the same jars of syrup.)

Any other comments/suggestions?

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Thanks for posing this Jim 134. I might be mistaken but even in 'The former Soviet Union', 'as bad as it was', folks were allowed to raise their own food as well as others if they chose? Apparently 'Life", 'Liberty', and the 'Pursuit of Happiness' is not recognized in this woke society? Nor any part of the Declaration of Independence that they chose to ignore? Nor the laws of our land expressed in our Constitution? Aren't those which are implementing these Unconstitutional 'DECREES'', which are trampling on the rights of our Citizens, the very 'enemies' of OUR Constitution???  The very Constitution 'they' have sworn to uphold and protect? 'If so', what does that make these rogues?
 
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